J. D. Heyes
Natural News
6/14/2012
As the federal Leviathan becomes ever larger and all-powerful, its Executive Branch tentacles reach further and further into the American fabric as it seeks to exert authority and control over more and more of our lives.
The latest power-mad grab can be attributed to the not-so-illustrious Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which is using (misusing, actually) the Clean Water Act (CWA) to control all ditches, gullies and other ephemeral areas by trying to say they are navigable waterways. Sure – like the ditch in front of your home can support barge traffic or a U.S. Navy warship.
Lawmakers who oppose the grab said the ridiculous “waterways” claim made by the EPA are temporary sites at best, created by rain or melting snow, but if controlled would prohibit private property owners from utilizing their own land for raising crops, grazing livestock or any number of other uses.
“Never in the history of the CWA has federal regulation defined ditches and other upland features as ‘waters of the United States,” Rep. John Mica, R-Fla., chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, Rep. Nick Rahall, D-W.Va., the ranking committee member, and Rep. Bob Gibbs, R-Ohio, chairman of the Subcommittee on Water Resources and Environment, said in a recent statement.
“This is without a doubt an expansion of federal jurisdiction,” they said…
…The EPA and Army Corps of Engineers say they wrote the new regulations in response to a pair of U.S. Supreme Court decisions in 2001 and 2006 which removed some waterways from federal protection but created some confusion about what remained protected…
The complete article is at Natural News.
Related: N.J. Being Sued for Rejecting Cap and Trade
Also, EPA Proposes Stricter New Standards for Soot Pollution
“The Kelo decision represented a vast expansion of government power of eminent domain—one that went too far.”
